If there is one place where the facts of the Holocaust are rarely contested, it is Israel. On Wednesday, however, public debate raged over comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who claimed that a key Palestinian cleric was a driving force behind Adolf Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews.

Addressing the World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem on Tuesday, on the eve of his departure for a trip to Germany, Netanyahu said that Haj Amin Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, had planted the seed of the Holocaust during a meeting with the Fuehrer.